Interview with Printpusher Jason Comely

When I took a look at "Confessions of a Burned Out Ex-Lawyer," I mentioned that I would come back and look at the domain where it is being published. The domain is Printpusher.com and it's owned by author Jason Comely (Zero to Superhero). [Note: I've signed on to post my second book with Comely.]

***

Blooking Central: First off, where did the idea for Print Pusher come from?

Jason Comely: Printpusher came about because I wanted to bring attention to a friend's wonderful stories, which were (at that point) just dormant text files laying on her harddrive. I wanted her to become validated as a writer. Once I decided to do that, the next decision I had to make was "in what format should I distribute her stories"? How do people read stories nowadays, on what devices? Printpusher explores that question.

BC: Tell me about the name -- Printpusher -- you're not pushing print obviously. [The home page reads: "Just select the story you want and click the 'Send to Phone' button to view the story on your cell phone (you'll need the free Wattpad software), or read it in pdf format on your pocket pc, Palm OS or home computer. A few stories are even available for download in mp3 audio format, so you can listen to them in your ipod or mp3 player."]

JC: Oh, but I am pushing physical books, like my own Zero to Superhero, and once "Confessions of a Burned Out Ex-Lawyer" by Cameron Case is done, it will be published and promoted as a physical book as well. Besides, the word "print" is a verb, it's an action word. It's a state of doing.

BC: Can you tell me how you're hyping your project? I'm guessing that some of the advertising you're doing could be duplicated by my readers. For instance, I found "Confessions" because it had been Dugg or Digged or whatever, most likely by the author himself. Do you encourage that? Do you have a cheat sheet of how to get the word out that you give your authors?

JC: I love this question, but the answer is too gi-normous to encapsulate in an email reply. I'll give you the gist of what it is I do and the strategies I employ, and you can always ask for clarification later.

I'm a marketer and a writer by trade (albeit a new one) and a web designer and SEO guy long before that, so I've learned a tonne of tricks and tactics to online promotion. With Printpusher and "confessions" and Zero to Superhero (and before that Hardcore Linux) I use everything from press releases to linkbaiting to meta tag and keyword/content optimization and web analytics to engage my potential readership.

You specifically mentioned linkbaiting on Digg.com, and that's perfectly ok to do IF (and that's a big capital i capital f) it's going to be relevant to the digg readership. Confessions is relevant to Digg readers because the blook is a relatively new digital format for literature, and the realm of law is a compelling and oft technical subject that would also be palatable to that profile of reader. Digg is a bit of a "trial by fire" situation (no pun intended) because the readers are savvy and easily bored. Reddit is even worse (and is quite a different animal from digg).

My best advice regarding linkbaiting, since you seem most interested in this particular marketing device, is get to know what works and what doesn't on the particular site you wish to use. You'll need to be able to write good headlines that cut to the quick and that make a big promise (that you can fulfill). Oh, and if you have thin skin, you might want to look into a myriad of other ways to promote your book.blook/blog whatever. Bad copy may get ignored, but if it's inappropriate or lame, it may be tagged as spam and your membership revoked.

I personally like linkbaiting certain sites because it forces me to think more dynamically about whatever I'm writing. And it puts it to the test where I can get an immediate measurable response.

BC: How hard is to get listed on Printpusher? I've got several
folks that are doing their own blogs but would love to duplicate content if at all possible (at least I think they would. I would!)

JC: I'm not sure what you mean by "getting listed" Cheryl, but duplicating content is not a good idea IMO. For one, google doesn't like duplicate content, and will punish websites for it. Secondly, it makes your blog/website/the origin of the content less appealing to the reader. The material is no longer exclusive, and therefore of less value and interest. Writing compelling content and promoting your website/blog in appropriate places is the best way. It's the only way, really.

BC: I'm guessing that the content posted on Printpusher is already written, like the entire novel, before your folks begin their posting. Is that a requirement?

JC: There are no rules Cheryl. In the case of "Confessions", it's being written on the fly. It's almost live (which gives me a great idea for my next project) ;)

BC: What's in it for me?

JC: Revenue distribution is a very important question. If it's a blook, much like "Confessions", where chapters or sections are leaked to the public every (other) day until completion, Printpusher hosts your blook and you set up your own adsense account and generate revenues from your blog that way. You may also want to set up a commision junction account and make some ching off banners and links and such. It's up to you, but I can help you if you need it.

Then (yes, there's a part 2 to it) once your blook is done, publish it into a physical book either through traditional publishing (the hard way) or through print by demand via lulu, amazon, etc. (the easy way) and generate revenues through the sales of that as well. If you decide to associate your work through printpusher, I will help you with promotion (including linkbaiting).

So, to boil it down, you'd be generating revs through ads and later book sales (and whatever other innovative ways you dream up). All the revs derived from your blook will be 100% yours.

BC: What's in it for you?

JC: A link going to Printpusher's index page will be at the bottom of every blog entry, giving the site traffic. Printpusher also benefits because we will be associated with a really cool person and writer (psst, that's you).

[From the About Page:

"Printpusher exists to showcase the literary gems of new and undiscovered writers. The stories are provided as pdf documents and can be downloaded for free ... However, sensing your generous nature, I will disclose to you the fact that you can support the site is by clicking on an Amazon.com banner or text links through-out the site and purchasing product. All revenues generated by the site are divvied up equally, kinda like they would in a hippy commune where they dance barefoot with flowers in their hair. Or something like that."]

BC: This is great! Will you answer just one more question? What can you tell me about the submission process?

JC: Cheryl, writers can submit a story proposal or sample chapter of the story to Jason S. Comely at this email addy (admin@printpusher.com) . Nothing too fancy or formal, but sell me a good idea. The work needs to be original, the submitter must be the author or sole owner of the material, and you must agree to let Printpusher be the exclusive host and destination of the work. Finally, the work cannot in any way espouse hatred, rascism or the compromise of children in any respect. Standard boilerplate stuff.

One more thing I should mention: I will set up your blog/username/password for the writer, and both the writer and I will share blog administration access. The reason I will continue to have the username and password is to tidy up bad html and ensure there will be a link to the Printpusher.com index page after every entry. If the writer can reliably perform these duties, I can allow them sole access if that's what they want.

I hope that helps (and that I see your submission soon),

Kind regards,
Jason

Lawyer Scores in Philadelphia

If you're looking for an agent to shop your blook-to-be, consider the Waxman Literary Agency. The name has appeared many times here at Blooking Central and here it is again. Listed under Latest Deals at their website, I found the following:

PHILADELPHIA LAWYER: A Decade of Cheating, Stealing, & Screwing in the Circus of Modern Law, based on the author's anonymous website, www.philalawyer.net, in which he posts brutally honest stories about his life and career that expose the legal profession's "absurd insistence that lawyers are agents of truth," to Regan Books.

Navigation

I did what you would expect meto do, since I examine blookable blogs and the creation of blooks! I went to the Philadephia Lawyer website. A sidebar link on the main page takes me to The Phila Lawyer Stories. But I still don't know if I'm in the right spot. I see the header and three links:

Banned in D.C. - Part 2 - 08.02.07
Banned in D.C. - Part 1 - 07.12.07
Update - 07.02.07

Then there's a Google Ad. Below it I find another list, all entries linked:

Suggestions? - 06.27.07
$160K (You're Selling Yourselves Short) - 06.19.07
Tanuki - Part 4 - 06.14.07
Tanuki - Part 3 - 06.06.07
Tanuki - Part 2 - 05.31.07
Tanuki - Part 1 - 05.23.07, etc. on down to ChapStick - Part 1 - 05.23.06

I read through the comments on that first May post and it seems as if the Philadelphia Lawyer had a different blog which he shut down, then ported to his own domain: "Decent first effort on the new site. Not quite as good as past posts.... Good to see you back though.." I wonder if that was before or after the blook deal. I wonder if the stories will stay up once the blook is published.

One of the nice things is that each post has a link to Printer Friendly version! But I've got to tell you that the whole Rudius Media thing is way over the top -- it has to be seen to be believed.

Phila Lawyer on Writing

There is Rudius messageboard which carries an interview with the author. Here's some snippets:

RW: What advice do you have for struggling writers?

PL: Content? Don’t whine. The world loves an asshole. Everyone hates whiners. If something bothers you, make fun of it.

RW: What's your process like? Do you write on a schedule or when inspiration hits?

PL: Both. Things hit me a lot when I’m running. Sometimes they’ll hit me when I’m driving, when I’m loaded, during sex... I lose most of the notes, but if I write it, I tend to recall, often subconsciously, the theme I was aiming toward. A lot of it’s unconscious. I realize later that I wrote something for a reason I didn’t notice while I was doing it. But it doesn’t happen unless you’ve the discipline to sit down and smash the keys.

RW: How intense is your revision process? Does the finished product look very close to the original work, or do you overhaul your original draft fairly heavily before it is ready to be posted?

PL: I drive Donika nuts with odd little style fixes. I don’t edit much substance. The words are the thing. I have this rhythm in my head when I read – cadences, peaks, runs and turns. The prose is everything. I’ll rewrite a sentence four or five times until I get it to flow with the rest of the paragraph.

Defense Attorney Confesses

I might as well confess ... I'm a sucker for graphics. [Hint: I wish someone would volunteer to create an impressive header for Blooking Central].

I worked my way over to "Confessions of a Burned Out Ex-Lawyer" from Cameron Case and was pleasantly surprised to find a gigantic Royal typewriter at the top of the page. The title looks like it might be in Courier, but then I think every typeface that looks typewriter-ish is Courier :-) All the text uses the same font, too. The theme is Cub Reporter, designed by Joni Mueller and Ivan Minic for Pixelita Designs LLC.

I get pretty finicky about design and I hate when links don't work. What's worse is when a site which has been Dugg already (or is it Digged?), and is being hyped here and yon, still isn't "ready for prime time." The About Page tells me: "This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself ... ." Somehow I resisted the urge.

The last chapter listed under Recent Entries is Chapter 9. If you've been actively reading, there's no problem. If you're a first time reader landing here, let me warn you that there's no Table of Contents. You can't get to Chapter One without going through the archive link and then scrolling!

I finally found Chapter One which was posted ten days ago. I skimmed to the bottom of the post only to discover that there was no link to Chapter Two. This makes no sense to me. It's a bit of a pain, but it's certainly worth the time to go back to the older posts and drop in the links. Several of the blogs I've looked at have found creative and useful ways to navigate their sites. [I would suggest Case take a look at those listed in my Fiction Links.]

You were wondering, so I'll tell you. At Digg, Confessions of a Burned Out Ex Lawyer is described as a blook -- an online book published via a blog. You know that I disagree with that definition but what else would I write about if I didn't include an exception now and then? It goes on to say: "[It's] about the underground world of lawyers from a former defense attorney. These are true stories involving real events and real people (whose names have been changed natch). ... Updated with new stories almost daily."

Star of David Update

Add Hebrew to the list of languages that I neither speak nor read nor understand. Guess that's why I didn't realize that Star of David by Zeev Barkan was being cross-posted: one his English blog and on his Hebrew blog!
My thanks to Barkan for sending me the update.
[See my original post]

Another Russian Blook - Tsvetkov

Victor Sonkin included Alexei Tsvetkov in his list of Russian authors that had successfully blooked. He said of Tsvetkov: "one of the finest poetic voices of his generation, who posts his poems and translations in his blog." Tsvetkov occasionally posts in English. If you click on his profile, you can read some of his recent material

YCrop gives us this:

"The fact of Tsvetkov being one of the greatest poets of the 20th century is no news to almost anyone with a firm foundation in Russian letters. What is newsworthy is the fact that, after 17 years of silence, Tsvetkov has reached a new peak in his artistic endeavors, producing a record quantity of true masterpieces over the course of the past 1.5 years. Now, in anticipation of new
book release from OGI Publishers [United Humanities Publishing] ... ."

Why, why, why is there no mention of the title?

Become Rich, Famous & Successful

One of the first visitors to Blooking Central was Robert C. Worstell [thanks!]. At that time I wasn't really sure about which direction I wanted to head but that has never been Worstell's problem! He's got a blook just out called An Online Millionaire Plan: Section 0 - Basics. As you might guess, there are more blooks/sections coming :-)

I only see five posts listed at Worstell's blog -- where he posted the announcement -- so it's kind of hard to dope out how this is a blook. But the blog's title carries the word ... . Then again, he has eleven blogs listed on his Blogger profile page, so maybe the material came from one of them. For instance, at the blog, "Go Thunk Yourself! - Become Rich, Famous, A Success!", the final post reads: "This blog-book (blook?) is frozen now."

Further down the page (9/20/07), Worstell lays out his process. he rejoices that with Lulu "I can update a book in minutes, meaning there is no problem with producing special editions for promotional events, much less correcting errors." He uses this to his advantage this way:

Now, what I've done is to combine book-blogging with such a fast POD publisher. Now the reader can help write the book. That's the key point. I publish the book in beta via the blog and Lulu simultaneously. My readers are able to give me rapid feedback via the blog comments - which arrive on my e-mail account. I correct the errors and tell that reader again via the blog.

So now we have near complete transparency and real reader input into how a book is written and what goes into it.

BTW, The Go Thunk Yourself Self-Help Library is for sale at Lulu. I'm inclined to believe that this is a blook, but will wait for Dr. Worstell to tell me for sure.

Lupetta

Betcha thought this blook was going to be from Italy. Hah! Fooled you. Nope, Lupetta is a novel from Russian author Pavel Vadimov. Luckily, the blook's website is in English. [You can even read translated excerpts from the blook.]

From the About the Author we get the proof of blookhood:

LUPETTA is Vadimov’s first novel. The text appeared on the Internet as daily entries in Vadimov’s Live Journal, and was discovered by the well-known critic, poet and prose writer Dmitry Bavilsky, who championed the publication of the manuscript.

My new personal blook hero, Victor Sonkin, expands on Bavilsky's role: "After critic Dmitry Bavilsky singled him out and urged him to rework the text for publication, Vadimov turned his postings into a novel, which was published earlier this year by Ripol Classic."

I wonder if Bavilsky reads any of your blogs. It would be nice to be discovered ... ah, yes, it would.

For all you fellas ...

I'm on a roll with Russian blooks and couldn't resist including this one. In spite of the fact that I can't find a single thing about it -- not even the title! -- except this blip at The Moscow Times:

Stalik Khankishiyev's cookbook on "macho" cuisine -- essentially a collection of recipes from his blog -- was a big hit on the nonfiction market. True, his recent autograph signing at a Moscow bookstore was announced over the PA system with the bizarre words "Stalik came to us from the Internet," as if they were introducing an alien from outer space. But the trend is here nonetheless.

That's how they're going to announce GoingLikeSixty's blook - as a blue light special at Kmart.

Nedetskaya Yeda

Ever helpful in the cause of blook reporting, Victor Sonkin alerted me to this: "The Russian literary community has been using blogs [to make books, that is, blooks!] for several years. Some examples include writer and essayist Linor Goralik, who publishes her short stories and comic strips online before turning them into "real" books.

Sonkin announced Goralik's 2004 blook this way:

Linor Goralik, a firmly established figure on Moscow's literary scene, has written a new book entitled "Not Baby Food" (Nedetskaya Yeda). Actually it's not an entirely new publication, since she wrote the book over a period of more than five years and published it on the Internet in small installments, each of them called "Something Added." [Goralik's blog]

Ah, Blook folk, there's nothing new under the sun. Don't bother looking.

Poludnya: Noon, Half a Day, Midday?

As long as I'm exploring things Russian, Victor Sonkin at The Moscow Times gives us this:

One success story is that of Almat Malatov, who was able to convert his online popularity under the nickname "Immoralist" into a book titled "Immoralist: Crisis of Noon," recently published by AST. The book, describing the youthful excesses of the autobiographical (what else?) hero in the 1990s, is genuinely boring. But somehow it is the boring stuff that attracts attention.

The title is translated at Guelman.ru as Immoralist: A Crisis for Half a Day. And yes, it makes a difference to me -- they suggest two very different things. The author bio at Guelman goes like this:

Almat Malatov is a writer, long-time contributor to Om magazine, and the author of one of the most frequently visited web journals, which he has kept since 2003 under the handle Immoralist (his on-line journal has over 6000 officially registered readers). In 2004, Malatov received the web's popular Parker Prize as the author of the best blog. In 2005, his book Binary Code was published. One of the novellas in it was included in an anthology of the best short-stories of 2005.

IZO offers a third translation of the title:

One of the most popular figures on the Russian LiveJournal scene, Immoralist, has produced a novel, Midday Crisis (Krizis Poludnya), which was officially launched at the Guelman Gallery today. ... His is another success for Russia's burgeoning LiveJournal scene, which flourishes in part because of the government constraints on the printed press.

While I concede that Midday Crisis and Crisis at Noon are similar, Crisis for Half a Day is much more in keeping with my regular experience :-)

Russian knock-off of Blooker Prize competition

Silicon Taiga, "Russia to give awards for essays in blogs," reports:

A St. Petersburg telecomunications company together with a publishing house has announced the Blogbuster literary award for works in blogs and on websites.

There would be several rounds in the contest. The authors will present their works from March 15th to 22nd. The works should be previously published on websites or blogs. Its volume should not be less than a half of an author's sheet (20 thousand symbols) and not more than 10 author's sheets (400 thousand symbols). It should be a full-scale prose work.

The jury comprising well-known writers and literary critics will consider the works. The winner will be announced and awarded by the St. Petersburg Book Salon.

Victor Sonkin at The Moscow Times (CONTEXT) gives the contest the name Blogbuster and says that it's "intended for authors whose initial playground was the Internet, or, more specifically, the ever-popular blogging services."

Demon Wife Diaries

According to "Eliza’s Haberdashery"

"Six years ago, a Japanese businessman went online to vent about his domineering wife. Blogging daily under the pen name “Kazuma,” he detailed how she grabbed food from his plate, sent him shopping in a typhoon, and made him sleep in the living room when he caught a cold. Now, his terrifying spouse is famous as Oni-yome, or “demon wife,” the star of a book, a television drama, a comic-book serialization, a videogame and, coming soon, a movie."

Yukari Iwatani Kane reported in The Wall Street Journal:

The book and its sequel have earned author Kazuma more than $300,000 in royalties, and the comic book, TV series, movie and game deals have brought in even more. His life hasn't changed much, though, he says, because the demon wife, who manages the family finances, doesn't give him much spending money. "Her argument is that it's because of her that I have stuff to write about," he says. "She says that if I don't like that, then I shouldn't write anymore."

Get Your Blook Deal through eBay

Quick, before the news articles are archived and therefore inaccessible, rush over to the Chicago Tribune and read about Dawn Meehan's blook deal. [The lady is local ... what can I say?] It's a fabulous story of a woman with six kids who posted a baseball for auction on eBay, attached a 1200-word humorous story to it, and wound up with an audience of 220,000 people! They even wanted her to write a book.

That was swell while it lasted but Meehan needed cash. She'd heard that blogs with ads could turn into money-makers so she gave it a try.

"Meehan started a blog [Because I Said So] June 29. She was getting about 10 visits a day. On Aug. 17, she decided she might get more traffic if she shared another funny story of modern motherhood on eBay -- the story of her buying Pokemon cards unknowingly after her children sneaked them in the cart during grocery-shopping.

"Again, response was explosive -- 14,000 online visits in four days. People asked if she had a blog, and she directed them there.

"As of Friday [two weeks later], visits were numbering close to 100,000 a day. People from nearly 70 countries have registered as "buddies" on her blog." (Chicago Tribune, 9/3/07)

Agents

The Chicago Tribune also reported: "This week, [Meehan] is meeting with a publisher on a book deal. A producer from Nickelodeon has asked her to write a TV series, and a movie producer asked whether she would be interested in writing a screenplay. Four literary agents have offered representation for her work." All this for a mommy blog?

Here's what two of the agents had to say:

"I just thought it was hysterical," said Jennifer de la Fuente, a mother of three and an agent with Venture Literary, which has offices in New York and San Diego. She called Meehan's writing "warm" and said it struck the right balance of "love but desperation."

"A lot of the 'mom stuff' out there feels so negative, catty and whiny," de la Fuente said. "This just felt a little fresher to me. I really responded to that tone."

Added Janet Grant, founder and agent with Books & Such in Santa Rosa, Calif.: "She invites you to enjoy her cheeky, plucky view of momhood, and you want to keep reading to find out what witticism will escape from her next. Erma Bombeck with six kids and two grocery carts wreaking havoc with your funny bone."

On September 19, Meehan posted on her blog that she had signed with Books & Such.

Who knew you could get a book deal by putting a story up on eBay? Have any of you tried it? Think you will?

Color Me Curious - BlogOpera

Tracy Crisp wrote in February at ThirdCat: "As you may know, I have a small interest in online fiction myself, and one which I’m developing further this year ... ." She calls her project a blogopera. [You can find it at Adelaide Sprawls]

I, for one, have no idea what she means by blogpera. Evidently she doesn't either:

"What’s a blogopera?

"I’m not entirely sure. Blogopera is in its infancy and it doesn’t have a wikipedia entry. I am borrowing concepts from blogging, flash fiction, novels, soap operas, historical research - all things I love very much.

"Blogopera might be a whole new genre or it might be a project that can’t be sustained."

The bit that fascinates me is that you can read the tiny pieces in any order - who knows what's going on? - or the character descriptions - who knows who these people are or are going to be or what their roles are? It is really and truly an incredible adventure. I highly recommend a peek.

As for what a blogopera has to do with blooks, I landed at Adelaide Sprawls via The View from Elsewhere. The gentleman there had said, "In the end, I decided to take a leaf from Third Cat's blook ... " and the rest you know.

Accidental Blook?

I wrote to Trisha Berg, author of The Great American Supper Swap, to ask if it was based on her supper-swapping blog. There was a bit of confusion over what makes for a blook so I quoted the definition used by the Lulu Blooker Prize competition:

"A blook is a book with content that was developed in a significant way from material originally presented on a blog, webcomic or other website. This material includes the website's characters, themes, ideas or outline that ends up getting published as a printed book."

Berg wrote back:

"Actually, both The Great American Supper Swap and Rattled began as regular books. But I do a ton of interactive add-ons via my website, Tip of the Week, and my blogs.

"I like to be in constant communication with my readers, through my newspaper column, my website and blogs. My ministry is helping moms simplify motherhood so they can get back to the joy of being a mom."

The question as I see it remains. Is this a blook? The book began offline. The earliest post on the supper-swapping blog is January 2, 2007. This suggests to me that the material migrated, at least concept-wise, to the blog. The book was published in March. The question in my mind is whether or not the material that was posted on the blog made it into the book. If it did, to my way of thinking it's a blook. What's your call?

Great American Supper Swap

I'm not sure if it bodes well for an author when the words supper and blook appear in the same sentence! Be that as it may, Trisha Berg was doing a blook tour and I caught up with her at Dawn Meehan's "Because I Said So." [A blook tour meaning that she had written a blook and was doing a virtual book tour. Meaning that the tour was virtual, blog to blog, instead of store to store or city to city. Not a virtual book. Ah me. Sigh.

Berg was touting The Great American Supper Swap: Solving the Busy Woman's Family Dinnertime Dilemma (Cook Communications). The question is, is this really a blook? Berg has two blogs that I could discover. One, called Trish's Recipe of the Week, has fewer than forty recipes and not much else that I can see. Still, at one a week that would be almost a year's worth. OTOH, maybe it was set up to advertise her book which came out in March. She has another blog, SimplifyingMotherhood. There again, no archives are listed and there's fewer than 100 posts that are labeled. So what's the deal? Is this a blook or not?

Berg is a regular feature writer for MOMSense Magazine, a regular feature writer for P31 WOMAN, Proverbs 31 Ministry, a weekly columnist for The Daily Record, a north central Ohio newspaper, a monthly columnist for InspiredParenting.net, and a guest columnist for CBN.com. A quick look at these and I couldn't find a single mention of supper! [I'm guessing that proving that her other book, Rattled-Surviving Your Baby's First Year without Losing Your Cool! (Waterbrook Multnomah, 2008), is a blook will be easier.] She also has a regular column at ChristianMommies.com and moderates Club M.A.W. (mothers and wives). Did I mention that she's a featured writer for MOPS International (Mothers of Preschoolers)? We're left knowing that she can write ... and does ... but did any of her online material make into print for David C. Cook?

Don't know. And I give up. I left this message at her site: "Is your book based on your supper swap blog ... is it really a blook? Will you be entering it in the upcoming Blooker Prize competition?" If I don't hear back from her, I'm going to call this one a blook anyway. So there.

Blue Light Special - Aisle Six

I've watched the recent Kmart tv ads that feature an animated blue light bulb and asked myself how many people remember "blue light specials." A portable table with a flashing blue light would be rolled to an aisle and the PA system would be activated. "Blue Light Special in aisle six. Men's handkerchiefs, normally $15 each, only $2 each but only for the next five minutes. ..." Thirty seconds later the announcement would come again, counting down the minutes left. When that special ended, another would begin. At least it seemed so.

Whether you ever shopped at Kmart or not in those "special" days, surely you can imagine the annoyance of the near-constant interruption. That's how I feel about ads on blogs.

Have I said that before? Loud and clear so that there's no misunderstanding my position? No? I HATE advertising on blogs! I'm not talking about splogs. I'm talking about active, entertaining, and informative places that I would like to visit and hang out at. Except the obnoxious ads that clutter, and in some cases overwhelm, the blog so put me off that I click myself away in order to breathe.

The food-related blogs have been the worse, followed closely by the gardening blogs. I scroll through the ads looking for blog-owner-generated day-to-day content until I give up, no longer caring if there's a blook buried in the marketing debris.

Just yesterday I received a query from someone wanting me to feature their site here at Blooking Central. I plugged in the address and wandered around for a bit, but stumbled over repeated pleas for me to "advertise with Name of Blog" and directives to call "1-800-Call-Now for ad sales information."

Honey, let me put it to you straight. If I can't find the content because the blue light is blinding me and the announcements have banged my brain to a pulp, I can't help you.

A Blook Tour is for Blooks

I first saw the phrase, blook tour, used at DotHill Press. While I disagreed with the definition of blook that they used, I did agree that featuring blooks on a tour of blogs constituted a blook tour.

Then this past week I saw on Because I Said So that Dawn was hosting a blook tour. Turns out the blook is a blook, so no reason to panic. Unfortunately, I saw it elsewhere ... misused and quoting Dawn! Book'em Benj-O says: "Here's the new idea: a blook tour--it combines the fun of a book tour with the international reach of a blog (blog + book tour = blook tour). [Thanks to Dawn for the new terminology.]"

NO, no, no! A book tour done virtually, blog to blog, is a virtual book tour. The term has been around forever. Visit Kevin Smokler's site -- he created the Virtual Book Tour. [I did one. Lots and lots of work. I also hosted one.]

So let's not add to the confusion. A blook is a dead tree version of online content. A blook tour is a tour which features blooks.

ABA To Publish Law Blook

Ralph Losey announced yesterday that the American Bar Association will publish a blook, e-Discovery: Current Trends and Cases, based on his blog, the e-Discovery Team. He says, "This will be, to my knowledge, the first time a legal blog has become a book" and I'm inclined to take his word for it :-)

This blook exactly fits the Lulu Blooker Prize competition: "Although the book will not be exactly the same as the blog, it will be derived from and based on it." Wonder if Losey or the ABA will be entering it into the next competition? [Which should be announced soon]

Here's something you don't read very often:

"The ABA is rushing the book to print so that it will be available by December. That is extraordinarily quick for a book publisher, far faster than any of the other major legal publishers who also expressed an interest in the project. Due to the time-sensitive nature of this material, I felt that it was important to get to press quickly. The ABA, which has been great to work with, is committed to making that happen."

I'm surprised that there's no mention on a e-book, especially in light of the "time-sensitive nature of the blook." How will the ABA and Losey keep this product updated? [See my post on The Constantly-revised Book] Having worked for a "major legal publisher" in the past, I could make some guesses but it would be nice to hear from Losey about that. The ABA wants to keep the blog online, so maybe that's their solution.

For more about the intended audience -- which has been carefully thought out -- it's definitely worth the trip to read his post.